Robert Anton Wilson has done turns as a novelist, futurist, playwright, poet, lecturer and stand-up comic, as well as a Playboy editor. One of his best-known works is the Illuminatus trilogy, the sci-fi cult novels Wilson co-authored with Robert Shea.

Robert Anton Wilson

With a book that he wrote subtitled My Life After Death, you'd have figured that Robert Wilson had put some thought into the subject. Well, sort of. Wilson is betting that it's gonna be a big surprise.

There is definitely no hell, deduces Wilson. "If there's a Creative Intelligence that would have that much interest in a domesticated primate to begin with," Wilson wonders, "then puts it away in what amounts to a prison for eternity--what kind of sadist is that?"

But Wilson is real clear on what he hopes isn't on the other side." I just hope that wherever I go there'll be no letters from Elaine Charkowski," growls the author, referring to the frequent contributor to Metro Santa Cruz's Letters pages.

Aahh, but leading up to that big surprise, Wilson has a pretty good idea what he wants to do.

"Party right up until the end, just like [Timothy] Leary," Wilson laughs. "I want to die at home with friends until it gets unbearable. Ideally, I'd like to be in my bed."

And then, for the final gathering, the visionary envisions "everybody wasted, looking at Three Stooges comedies" that will be showing as a backdrop to the wake.

For all his accomplishments, Wilson wants to be remembered as someone who created more doubt, more openmindedness and less assurance. "To make everybody less sure of themselves, that'd be great, huh?"